Some of my favorite bands are those that fall under the subgenre of EBM called futurepop. EBM itself is a hybrid of industrial and electronic; futurepop is EBM with more synthpop and trance. Both genres are in frequent rotation at Malediction Society, the Sunday night goth dance club that I’m planning to go to tonight.

But I found out on Friday that one of my absolute, all-time favorite synth/futurepop/EBM bands, VNV Nation are playing one North American date this fall. And it is here in Los Angeles, in celebration of industrial dance club Das Bunker’s 10th anniversary. And it is the same weekend as when another of my favorite bands, the Swedish group Covenant (not to be confused with the American Christian band) are playing the Knitting Factory. The two shows are within three days of each other.

This is why I love Los Angeles. In a city with so many creative people, and so many people focused on music, even subculture genres of it, there’s enough of a population to bring not one, but two of my favorite bands to the city. And there’s enough of a population to support entire clubs that play a genre of music that, while very much in the forefront of the goth world, is comparatively obscure to everyone outside that subculture.

So there is an entire weekend of futurepop shows in October that I’m counting down to. And for tonight, the theme at Malediction is Orientalia. I’m going to go raid my closet for chinoiserie.

Nope. As I said above, this is a Swedish EBM band that focus their lyrics on man vs. machine, or machines vs machines, or the end of the world, or other cheerful things like that. There is nothing Christian about them.